Our defence needs to improve dramatically, we need to get the opposition into an arm wrestle.

Said exactly the same to my mate at the game. If Marshall scores early we go on and win that by 50. After that the nerves built up and it took a while to get the confidence going.

As for Leigh, I'd go the same again if Thompson is fit. He picked up a knock and seemed to have a bit of a problem with his ankle/calf maybe.

I’m in the Kerighan to 6 camp with Eckersley in at centre.

Since French has been out our defence on that edge has been shocking and last night again Rocky missed a number of tackles that he really should be making.

Kerighan so far has been very good in defence for Wigan and would shore up that channel without issue till French returns.

He's young and he's learning on the job but Nsemba is struggling defensively on that side IMO. He comes up with some monstrous tackles, where he absolutely smothers the attacker and it looks hugely impressive (like the one on Sironen a couple of weeks ago) but he switches off too often when sliding across and there are gaps opening up because of it. He then doesn't have the time to recover as a break/half break is made. It's something I'm sure he'll work on and it's in no way to take away from the fabulous job he's done for us so far. It's easy to forget how young the kid is because he's built like a brick outhouse and I'm sure he'll get there. Having as strong a defender as possible at 6 and 3 would certainly help.

Rocky came flying out of the line a number of times last night and was miles off, we were lucky it wasn't taken advantage of.

I'm in two minds with him - he's hardly played in the 1st team for 2 years and when he does he has a game then is out again and i think that shows in an element of nerves. I'm tempted to give him a run of games and see how he goes, give him a chance to settle in. There's a pretty decent player there I think. Much will depend on how we go with Field/Leeming in terms of cover in the backs if needed and ability to spell Leeming. It looks like Faz standing in and one of Junior and Walters coming on. This does weaken our edge defence though which is already our weak point so I think it needs to be looked at. I'd rather rocky came on as interchange for leeming and we keep Faz in the 2nd row I think .

Leigh have a good shift attack and will really test our edge defence next week and we need to be better.


I

Its amazing how quickly a squad that looks so deep on paper at the start of the year can be chipped away at. French, O'Neill, Isa and Cooper being out long term along with Eseh, Chan and Byrne not looking the players we hoped they'd be means we're thin on options all of a sudden. Harvie Hill hasnt set the world on fire recently either.

I think in an ideal world Smith and Thompson would get a rest over the next week but doesnt look like thats going to be possible. Jai Field is the big concern for me though over the next few games - personally Im not sure he should be played at all against Leigh. You can tell hes nervous about those hamstrings and understandably so with his history. Most of the time you can tell he runs at around 70-80% capacity - in fact the only time this year where I felt hes run at top speed was before the tackle on Taylan May.

You could see with his chase on Bibby that he wasn't going at 100%. He actually said in his post game interview on Wigan TV, that he had been told by the physios that he hit 95% of his top pace at one point, so they must be monitoring him with GPS or whatever. It feels like the only time he's gone flat out this season was at Wembley, when a) he had his best game of the year by far but b) he came out of it injured.

Hopefully they can manage him through the rest of the season and then get it fully sorted in time for 2025.

I think we will see Forber in the squad soon, possibly the Leeds game. In my view, he will make a big difference.

Hope so - he looked pretty lively when he played against London.

+1, he is potentially the best hooker we have had for years, hopefully he can take the chance now.
Added to which is he is very effective behind a hard-working pack, hopefully we can get back to that go forward again as well.